'I Went Undercover At A Furry Convention'

The furry fandom is notoriously private and often fetishised. Alley Pascoe infiltrated the ranks to find out what really goes on behind closed doors at a furry festival

It could be a normal Friday night. The DJ’s playing “Get Low” by Lil Jon, the dance floor is pumping and I’m sipping a Corona at the bar. I could be at any club in the Sydney CBD. Except a lion in a tutu just walked in the door, there’s an albino wolf twerking in the corner and a husky just stood on my tail. No, I’m not having a bad trip; I’m at a furry convention on the Gold Coast. Which is much the same thing.

When marie claire commissioned me to go undercover at the ninth annual Furry Down Under (FurDU) convention, the biggest furry convention in the country, I was intrigued – and terrified. Furries freak me out. From what I’ve read online, they’re people who dress up in furry costumes who may or may not be sexually attracted to animals. But the fandom insists that fursuiting has nothing to do with bestiality and is just about performance and self-expression. Sure it is …

I’m truly all for selfexpression, but I still can’t comprehend why an adult would want to spend an entire weekend pretending to be an animal with a “fursona”. To find out, I’d need to suit up. I’ve never been big on dressing up – the last time I put on a costume was 15 years ago when I went as Ginger Spice to my best friend’s birthday party – so shopping for my fursuit was tough. Trawling through eBay, I realised you could buy full-body fursuits or partials with just a head, tail and paws. When I put a bid on a partial fursuit – a canine-feline hybrid by the name of Ember – I was strangely excited. The excitement soon dissipated when I tried Ember on for the first time and realised how claustrophobic she felt. Struggling to breathe, I started to seriously wonder how I would survive the weekend.